The superdelegate race

With Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama virtually tied in delegates from early-primary states, the race for the Democratic presidential nomination now hinges on the party’s nearly 800 superdelegates, the political insiders who are free to make up their own minds at the convention.

With so much riding on those votes, Politico is inaugurating a running tally of the announced endorsements of superdelegates, which we will update and maintain on the Web with the help of our reporters and readers.

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Superdelegates represent about 20 percent of the Democrats’ 4,049 delegate votes. Both Clinton and Obama have assiduously courted them in recent months, hoping to clench enough to obtain the 2,025 votes needed to secure the nomination. As of Monday, Clinton leads Obama 222 to 128 among superdelegates.

Our list is based on a record of 773 superdelegates provided to us earlier this month by the Democratic National Committee. We divided these names into four categories: governors, members of Congress, distinguished party leaders and Democratic National Committee members or those related to the DNC, which we denoted simply as “DNC.”

The list has changed since we first compiled it. For instance, Coloradan Joan Fitz-Gerald lost her superdelegate status when she was succeeded by Michigan’s Mark Schauer as head of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. This substitution also altered the overall number of superdelegate votes, since the Democratic Party is denying Michigan votes at the convention.

In all, 50 superdelegates from Florida and Michigan currently have no vote at the convention. We gave these people a “vote weight” of zero. Other superdelegates have a vote weight of one, except for delegates representing Democrats Abroad, who are given half a vote under DNC rules. There are eight superdelegates from Democrats Abroad, resulting in four votes. Thus, we had 773 superdelegates, 723 voting superdelegates and 719 votes.

In addition to these 719, there are another 76 “add-on” superdelegates determined by the state parties, resulting in a grand total of 795. Many of these add-on delegates have yet to be named; we have omitted them from the list for now.

Our spreadsheet is divided into two sections: “Data” represents the list of 773 names and “Totals” is a tally of the endorsements of superdelegates.

In compiling the list, we relied heavily on the information and links provided by a blog, demconwatch.blogspot.com, and on news accounts and press releases from the campaigns.

This list will grow and change as more superdelegates are named and as more announce their endorsements. We invite our readers to apprise us of any additions, changes, mistakes or ambiguities in the tally.

Remember, unlike traditional pledged delegates, these superdelegates can change their mind at any time. Their whims may well determine the next Democratic presidential nominee.